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Taking Shape (WIP), 2022

I’ve been trying my hand at mindful painting recently :)

This is a small section of something I did a month or so ago, still unfinished (as everything is). I’m having fun messing around with colours and textures

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Eclipsing Negativity (WIP), 2021

I left this for a long while unfinished and tbh, I’m not quite sure what “finished” should look like...

This painting started the other way up while playing with watercolour, and on a particularly self-hatey day some darkness started closing in from the top.

A few days later I came back to it, and those same icks were stirred up again; turning it upside down and seeing the colour and light rise above the dark, instead of being crushed by it, made me think about how often my perspective of myself and on life is manipulated by my mental state, and how much of an active effort it is to “eclipse” negative thinking.

By turning it upside down, I feel myself taking back a bit of control in my head.

I prefer it this way up :)

DISCLAIMER: my message here isn’t that “turning something upside down cured my depression”, because mental health is obviously so much more complex than that. This is my personal experience, where I’ve come to realise that while there’s not much that can be done to rid the mind completely of dark clouds overhead, actively pushing myself to see things from a new perspective can provide enough light in there to not be so under threat by it. Reinforcing a more positive mindset is something I’ve come to see as a weapon of sorts, that stops me from feeling so vulnerable in my head. It’s a constant effort of course, and I’m very fortunate that my horrid little demons are not quite so large as others.

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Heartsplosion (WIP), 2022

It’s my first time making something with alcohol ink. I’m using PVA glue as a makeshift primer on paper, and occasionally cold blowing with a hairdryer trying to make some free-flowing forms.

I thought I could see two dancers in the throng, but now all I see is a guy with a badly-cut mohican

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Rainbow Robin (WIP), 2021

Oil paint

Not sure what to add to this! I’ve lost the reference photo so will have to make up the background bits :)

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Sunflower Oil (WIP), 2021

Oil paint practice with a sunflower :)

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Something Rising (WIP), 2021

Acrylic paint

A mindful painting attempt with green and pink. Not sure why, but it reminds me a little bit of Fern Gully 🧚‍♀️

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A work in progress watercolour piece, 2021

I wanted to paint with some bright colours to get out of this emotional funk I’ve been rolling in recently. No plan or vision for it, just been letting the brush do its thing :)

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A collection of unfinished gubbinses

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Goodbye, Hello

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Pale skin

Paper thin

Woken at the lightest touch

Vacant eyes

A blank sunrise

Of a clouded mind between us

One last breath

A quiet death

You leave us all behind

With hearts torn

But you're reborn

To where she waits by your side

Take her hand

Slowly stand

And walk forever, ever missed

Together elated

Yet you still waited

For us to wave goodbye as you left

Ashleigh Maund, 2017

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Mother Moon and her Little Moonlet 🌜, 2017-2021

Watercolour and fineliner

I started a small watercolour painting a couple of years ago, leaving a little whitespace while I thought of something to add...

When I picked it up again the other day, it reminded me of a dream I had where I was hurtling through space past all these faces, with my moon child in my arms.

So it felt like a nice place for a moon and her little moonlet to call home.

Still a WIP :)

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Home

A poem about a home I’ll never leave :)

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Windows thrown wide, clean air rushes in;

Now these empty walls can breathe again.

Hope washes out grey thoughts that clung

To carpets and curtains: I gleam in the sun.

Walls, once bare, I paint florid with colour,

A famished mind at last uncovered.

Footsteps outside; I open the door,

So those I’ve kept out can love me once more.

A laughter ignites the bare fireplace,

That beats its warmth through once barren hallways.

Dust off the lamps so inside I glow;

Light up the heart that before couldn’t grow.

I see before me now I am alone,

This body of mine will always be home.

Ashleigh Maund, 2021

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A fineliner moon with watercolour 🌜 (WIP), 2017-2021

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A mandala doodle with fineliner pen, ~2018

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Hummingbird ballpoint pen doodle, ~2018

(Less “hummingbird”, more “little-turd” <3)

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Watercolour flower, ~2017